Fundamentals of Railway Human Factors and Error Management

About the Course

Rail remains one of the safest forms of land transport, with road transport generating almost 14 times more accident costs than rail. While rail imposes fewer costs on the community in terms of accidents, congestion and emissions than other surface transport modes, the cost of rail accidents in 1999 was estimated at AUD$133 million according to the Australian Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE).

Over 20 years since this BTRE figure was published, and despite the highly protected and technological nature of the rail industry, human performance limitations at all levels of the rail industry remain the greatest challenge to further improving safety and reducing rail accident costs and impacts. The consequences of errors in the rail industry can be disastrous and the subject of public outrage, exhaustive inquiries and drawn-out legal action.

However, the underlying reasons for human error are the most commonly misunderstood and poorly analysed issue in rail safety. While human error is widely recognised as a problem, management often engages in learned helplessness; nothing can be done to prevent human failings as accident causes. Some community sectors are also quick to attribute rail accidents to human errors, without taking the opportunity to assess human error within the context of the organisation and wider rail system.

This 7-week Fundamentals of Railway Human Factors and Error Management online program will provide participants with a good understanding of the key factors that influence human error within the rail industry and practical strategies for making systems more error tolerant. Upon completion of this railway safety course, participants have the option of completing a further 4 weeks for the Advanced Railway Human Factors and Error Management program.

Who Should Attend

This railway management course is designed for those individuals seeking a comprehensive understanding of applied rail human factors. Expected participants include:

• Rail Operations and Engineering Senior Managers
• Team Leaders and Supervisors
• Human Resource Managers
• Rail Safety and WHS Managers, Investigators and Auditors
• Quality, risk, compliance and assurance managers

Key Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the evolution of human factors in rail, its current scope and how it may contribute to addressing future safety challenges in modern railway systems
• Understand human error within the context of significant rail safety incident investigations
• Incorporate practical proactive error management strategies contextualised to rail operations
• Address human performance limitations that may impact effective decision-making and increase the probability of error occurrence
• Identify social and group influences that may shape human performance
• Adopt a systematic human factors analysis method for incident investigations to better identify errors and error producing conditions

Course Information

Instructional Delivery Method: Scheduled Digital
Prerequisite & Advanced Preparation: Reading material will be sent prior to the course 

Delivered by Dr Graham Edkins

Organisational Psychologist Dr Graham Edkins is considered one of Australia’s leading Safety Management and Human Factors experts and is regularly retained as an independent safety investigator and human factors expert witness for various civil and criminal matters.

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